Latvia, Markets and Companies, Telecomunications

Responding to several political parties and politicians’ position that the tender to pick a new LTV head and a board member in charge of digital development and content was not held in line with legislative requirements and that a new competition should be organized for these positions, NEPLP representatives indicated that the council strongly denounced such political interference in an independent institution’s decisions.

“The results of the LTV board tender are binding and will not be revised,” NEPLP said.

NEPLP representatives noted that in order to ensure a professional and high-quality selection process, the tender’s commission was expanded from three NEPL members, two experts and one representative of the executive arm to five NEPL members and three independent experts in the capacity of consultants. A representative of the Cross-Sectoral Coordination Center was not included in the panel in order to ensure independence from the executive.

Furthermore, NEPL indicated that the selection criteria regarding professional experience were applied in the same way as in other public media tenders in line with the current Electronic Mass Media Law, NEPLP said.

NEPLP deputy chairman Ivars Abolins said that the “unprecedented campaign of political pressure started by the New Conservative Party and New Unity very much resemble the path chosen by Hungary and Poland towards subjecting media to political control by exerting brutal political pressure on public media boards and an independent regulator”.

NEPLP has informed the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) about the current situation.

As reported, the National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP) has decided to appoint Elmars Giels, Olainfarm marketing and sales data analyst, to the position of the Latvian public television’s (LTV) board chairman. Meanwhile, Eva Juhnevica, the executive director of the XXVI Nationwide Song and XVI Dance Celebration, has been appointed to the position of a board member in charge of digital development and contents.

The Latvian Association of Journalists has called on NEPLP to annul the decision and announce a new tender. The association believes that the selected board members do not meet the tender requirements. “The selected board chairman does not have any significant management experience, while the member in charge of contents has no experience in the work of mass media, which earlier had been named as a necessary requirement,” the association said.

Also, the New Conservative Party (JKP) plans to ask the Saeima Media Policy Subcommittee to annul the results of a tender to fill vacancies on the LTV board and to look into lawfulness of the NEPLP decisions about participants of the tender. Meanwhile, other politicians said that the Saeima has no rights to make decision on LTV board tender results.

New Unity leader Arvils Aseradens said after a meeting with NEPLP head Dace Kezbere on Wednesday that there was a breach of legilsation in LTV board organized by NEPLP.

The politician said that Kezbere’s explanations on the tender procedure and the selected candidates were unconvincing and “very weak”. He said that New Unity’s faction has not been convinced that the best candidates had been selected.

“We have expressed a request to revise the tender results and annul them,” said Aseradens.